IKED(8)

💖 IKED(8) — Internet Key Exchange version 2 (IKEv2) daemon 💖

System Manager's Manual · the iked page, bestie edition 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

iked — the Internet Key Exchange version 2 (IKEv2) daemon, aka the little guy that makes two peers fall in love (cryptographically) 💞

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

iked [-dnSTtVv] [-D macro=value] [-f file] [-p udpencap_port]
     [-s socket]

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

okay so. iked is an Internet Key Exchange (IKEv2) daemon. its whole job is doing mutual authentication and then establishing and maintaining IPsec flows and security associations (SAs) between the two peers. that's it. that's the gig. main character energy fr 🫶

the IKEv2 protocol is defined in RFC 7296, which combines and updates the previous standards: ISAKMP/Oakley (RFC 2408), IKE (RFC 2409), and the Internet DOI (RFC 2407). and here's the thing — iked only supports the IKEv2 protocol. support for ISAKMP/Oakley and IKEv1 is provided by isakmpd(8). so if you're on that old-old stuff, wrong bestie, wrong daemon.

iked supports mutual authentication using RSA or ECDSA public keys and X.509 certificates. see the “PUBLIC KEY AUTHENTICATION” section below and PKI AND CERTIFICATE AUTHORITY COMMANDS in ikectl(8) for more info about creating and maintaining the public key infrastructure. it's giving infrastructure era ✨

the options are as follows:

• -D macro=value — define macro to be set to value right on the command line. this overrides the definition of macro in the configuration file. command line said it first, so command line wins 💅
• -d — do not daemonize, and log to stderr. staying in the foreground, loud and proud 🗣️
• -f file — use file as the configuration file, instead of the default /etc/iked.conf.
• -n — configtest mode. only check the configuration file for validity. vibe check but for your config, no cap 👑
• -p udpencap_port — specify the listen port for encapsulated UDP that the daemon will bind to, as well as the UDP encapsulation port set in resulting IPsec SAs. in order to receive UDP encapsulated IPsec packets on ports other than 4500, the net.inet.esp.udpencap_port sysctl(2) variable has to be set accordingly. this implies -t. 👀
• -S — start iked in passive mode. see the set passive option in iked.conf(5) for more info.
• -s socket — use socket as the control socket, instead of the default /var/run/iked.sock.
• -T — disable NAT-Traversal and do not propose NAT-Traversal support to the peers. hard pass, no proposal 💀
• -t — enforce NAT-Traversal and only listen to NAT-Traversal messages. > ⚠️ this option is only recommended for testing; the default is to negotiate NAT-Traversal with the peers. so like, it's a test-mode slay, not an everyday slay 🙈
• -V — show the version and exit. quick lil peek and dip ✌️
• -v — produce more verbose output. more words, more tea 🍓

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🔐 PUBLIC KEY AUTHENTICATION 🔐

so it is possible to store trusted public keys to make them directly usable by iked, bypassing the need to use certificates. no certs, no problem. the keys should be saved in PEM format (see openssl(1)) and named and stored as follows:

For IPv4 identities:    /etc/iked/pubkeys/ipv4/A.B.C.D
For IPv6 identities:    /etc/iked/pubkeys/ipv6/abcd:abcd::ab:bc
For FQDN identities:    /etc/iked/pubkeys/fqdn/foo.bar.org
For UFQDN identities:   /etc/iked/pubkeys/ufqdn/user@foo.bar.org

depending on the srcid and dstid specifications in iked.conf(5), keys may be named after their IPv4 address, IPv6 address, fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or user fully qualified domain name (UFQDN).

for example, iked can authenticate using the pre-generated keys if the local public key, by default /etc/iked/local.pub, is copied to the remote gateway as /etc/iked/pubkeys/ipv4/local.gateway.ip.address and the remote gateway's public key is copied to the local gateway as /etc/iked/pubkeys/ipv4/remote.gateway.ip.address. of course, new keys may also be generated (the user is not required to use the pre-generated keys). in this example, srcid and dstid would also have to be set to the specified addresses in iked.conf(5). ✨

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📁 FILES 📁

• /etc/iked.conf — the default iked configuration file. the moment. the blueprint 💖
• /etc/iked/ca/ — the directory where CA certificates are kept.
• /etc/iked/certs/ — the directory where IKE certificates are kept, both the local certificate(s) and those of the peers, if a choice to have them kept permanently has been made.
• /etc/iked/crls/ — the directory where CRLs are kept.
• /etc/iked/private/ — the directory where local private keys used for public key authentication are kept. the file local.key is used to store the local private key. 🤫
• /etc/iked/pubkeys/ — the directory in which trusted public keys are kept. the keys must be named in the fashion described above. no random names, bestie.
• /var/run/iked.sock — the default iked control socket.

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

iked.conf(5), ikectl(8), isakmpd(8)

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📜 STANDARDS 📜

C. Kaufman, P. Hoffman, Y. Nir, P. Eronen, and T. Kivinen, Internet Key Exchange Protocol Version 2 (IKEv2), RFC 7296, October 2014.

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🦋 HISTORY 🦋

the iked program first appeared in OpenBSD 4.8. a true icon, honestly 💜

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🌈 AUTHORS 🌈

the iked program was written by Reyk Floeter <reyk@openbsd.org>. king behavior 👑

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Debian · November 29, 2021 🎀 — yeah that's the whole page bestie, IKED(8) under the System Manager's Manual, mwah, slay, periodt 💅✨